…Network!!…Network!!!

Naveen Jindal School of Management students (left to right) Kamiar Kordi, Brian Harris and Kiran Devaprasad, each earned a $15,000 Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation Scholarship that all three picked up at an Oct. 27 Foundation gala in San Antonio.

Of course, being the savvy Jindal School students they are, Devaprasad, Harris and Kordi took advantage of their opportunity to network with top business leaders who were in attendance.

Kordi shared photos and his recollections of meeting U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Berkshire Hathaway CEO and Chairman Warren E. Buffet and Southwest Airlines Chairman, CEO and President Gary C. Kelly. Buffett and Kelly were two of the business legends the Hall of Fame inducted this year.

“I posed the first question to the panel of inductees,” Kordi recalls. “I asked: ‘What would you recommend I do with this $15,000 scholarship?’ ”

Kordi, Sen. Ted Cruz and Danial Kordi

The panel laughed, Kordi says, and inductee Dian Graves Stai, chairman of the Mansefeldt Investment Corp., replied, “If you have no debt, let’s go to Vegas!”

Gary Kelly then said, “Great first question, I would recommend spending it on ventures that would help you propel to the next stage.”

Kordi later met Kelly in person and thanked him for the positive culture he has created at Southwest Airlines, telling him “how such culture is much needed in our country.”

Kordi and Warren Buffett

With Senator Cruz, Kordi shared the spotlight with his brother Danial, whom he had invited to the event as his guest.

Kordi says he approached Buffett in the VIP section prior to his induction dinner. “I tapped him on the shoulder, and without me saying anything, he turned around and put his hands over my shoulder and said, ‘Of course, let’s take a picture!’

Kordi and his brother proceeded to take photos with Buffett, and he pulled out his wallet, Kordi remembers and “said, ‘There you go, not much in there!’ and the photographer took photos of that scene! It was great and surreal.”